Update: Two ETSU basketball players charged with drug offenses

Rex Barber
•
Nov 20, 2012 at 4:51 PM

Two East Tennessee State University basketball players were charged Monday in a drug investigation, according to a statement from the school.

Sheldon Cooley and Marcus Dubose have been suspended indefinitely from the men’s basketball team, ETSU Director of Media Relations Joe Smith said in a statement. The men were charged Monday by the First Judicial Drug Task Force. This is Cooley’s second arrest this year, having been charged nearly nine months ago with filing a false report.

“From the beginning, ETSU has cooperated with this investigation and will continue to do so,” Smith said.

According to court documents, The Post Master at ETSU intercepted a package addressed to Dubose that contained what was believed to be a quarter pound of marijuana buds.

DTF agents confronted Dubose when he came to pick up the package shortly after 1 p.m. Monday.

Agents searched the campus apartment of Dubose and Cooley. Scales commonly used to measure marijuana were found in the apartment, according to the court documents. Cooley and Dubose were the only people with access to the apartment. Cooley denied the scales belonged to him.

Cooley was jailed on a drug paraphernalia possession charge around 5 p.m. Monday.

Dubose was charged with possession of a schedule VI drug for resale and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Cooley was released from the Washington County Detention Center on $1,000 bond about 1:20 Tuesday morning.

Dubose was still in jail on $11,000 bond as of Tuesday afternoon. He, too, was charged around 5 p.m. Monday.

Cooley was arrested Feb. 23 and in June entered a guilty plea to solicitation to file a false police report. That charge stemmed from a robbery investigation at his campus apartment, during which he lied to police about what was taken.

According to an ETSU Public Safety report of the incident, students John Ward and Adam Sollazzo told campus police three black men came in the apartment around 9:50 p.m. Feb. 21 brandishing two pistols. Cooley was not there.

Ward and Sollazzo were bound by their feet and hands, and they were gagged, according to the report.

Property was reported stolen, including $1,300 cash from Cooley. Police later learned Cooley’s story was not true.

His plea in June also called for a $25 fine and suspended 25-day jail sentence. Cooley could have faced two years in prison for a conviction on the original charge of filing a false report, a felony. With his plea, Cooley was granted judicial diversion, which would have allowed him to clear his record once an 11-month, 29-day probation term was completed successfully.

No new information regarding the robbery has been reported.

Cooley and Dubose are senior guards with the team and are the two top scorers.